Hannah's Musings on Stuff and Such

An interesting distinction—substantive v. process crimes

That is the argument now being pushed by the supporters of the Dude—that the crimes being charged by the Special Counsel have no substance and are merely about process. That argument is consisrent with an inability to perceive process. If applied to a knife murder, it would mean that a stabbing, despite the evidence of blood, if it results in the discovery of no body, is not a crime.
This way of reasoning is consistent with the exclusive focus on results (victims). The Intent of the agent can be discounted entirely and that actually makes sense. If we accept, for example, that the Dude has no intent to do anything, then we can conclude he just reacts to events like a light bulb to the flip of a switch. If there is no agent and no intent, there can be no crime—just an amoral force that wrecks destruction wherever it goes.

I have long suggested that perhaps, instead of worrying about robots acting like humans, we should be more of concerned about people acting like robots. It is a lot easier to disconnect HAL than to remove the Dude from the White House.